Cured
by Javanyet
Summary: Nick's obsession with regaining his mortality leads to an unspeakable act and an existence altering choice. A spinoff of the FK episode The Fix. Contains one scene of domestic violence.
1. Chapter 1

To say Maura was stunned when Nick arrived to pick her up at the stylist would be a grotesque understatement. She very nearly didn't believe it was him.

"Maura, your 'gentleman friend' is out here waiting when you're through," Sharon called into the salon area, where Stacy was finishing Maura's touch up. "And sister," she added in a stage whisper, "he's _hot_. No wonder you hide him away." Maura had intended to cab it home, she knew Nick had left before sunrise to meet Natalie at her lab, yet another set of tests or theories or something which he'd planned would keep him there until work..

"What are you talking about? Find out who that poser is and throw his ass out, my man _never_ ventures outside before dark!" The "sun allergy" was well known to her stylist and the staff.

"He does now," came the familiar voice as Nick's smiling, slightly flushed countenance peeked around the corner. "Natalie gave me some medicine to fight the sun... look who's wearing shades!" He popped on a pair of round black glasses. "I like the look, myself." Maura was speechless, and simply stared in disbelief. "That's okay, Sweet, I'm a little knocked back by it too. I'll wait out here with these pretty ladies until you're done."

"What did he call you? 'Sweet'? That's _so_ romantic," gushed Colleen the shampoo girl.

"Uh-huh," Maura acknowledged vaguely. Stacy finished with the curling iron and undraped her.

"Well don't leave him waiting, girl. I know _I _wouldn't."

She found Nick slouched back in a chair in the waiting lounge, long legs stretched out, glasses slipped down his nose, looking like a proper stud as he charmed the staff and customers to pieces. Hastily Maura paid up and left the cash tip for Stacy then stood over Nick, her eyes wide.

"What the fu..."

"Ah-ah, keep it clean," he chided as he rose and slipped an arm around her, "at least until we get out of here," he added in her ear. She was still too flabbergasted to respond, but flinched dramatically as they stepped out onto the brightly sunlit sidewalk.

"Shit, Nick, what's going on!"

"I told you, Nat came up with some genetic medicine that has _cured_ me."

"Cured you," she echoed. She never liked that word and always protested his use of it. It was a bad habit of self-criticism reinforced by Natalie Lambert. "You're not _sick_, goddammit. What do you mean 'cured'?"

"Okay, _changed_ me, if you have to be politically correct."

He was hustling her, dragging her almost, to the car. She wrestled free and stood still. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what is happening here!" Quite apart from what she might consider "normal" goofiness at finding himself in the sunshine for the first time in 800 years, she thought she noticed something a little "switched on" about him. It was all a little too much to take casually.

"Well I can't exactly tell you all about it _here_," he gestured around him, "unless you'd like me to." He looked in just a devilish enough mood to do it, too.

"No! Christ, no, okay? Where are you parked?"

"Here," the Caddy, top down, was in a metered space with a "police business" placard in the window. Not Nick's usual style, she thought, but then nothing about this seemed usual. He drove them to the beach and parked at the far end of the lot near a stand of trees, then turned to her and stretched his arms out expansively and dropped his head back to bask in the sunlight. His skin was turning pink already.

"Here I am, baby, a real live boy at last!"

Maura sat still as a stone, waiting. This seemed to disappoint him. "You look as if you just lost the lotto. I'm telling you I'm cured and you can't even _smile_?"

"Well come one, you show up in badass shades in the middle of the day, and I'm supposed to just say 'gee, isn't this swell' without asking a single question?" He was practically pouting now. She wasn't sure how to deal with this sudden adolescence, or whatever it was, regardless of what good things might have triggered it. "Start talking, detective. And it better not include anyone named Geppetto."

So he told her about the drug whose name she could never hope to remember, let alone pronounce, how for the first time he was real, was human, had been stuffing himself with junk food all day as he worked a department corruption investigation with Schanke.

"Nick, _junk food_? You eat for the first time in 800 years and you want _junk food_?" He shrugged, grinning sheepishly. Maura had to admit to herself, there was a certain appeal in this boyish enthusiasm. The contrast to his usual wry wit was, for now anyway, kind of attractive. But she was sensing something else driving it, a sort of buzz going on that had to be something besides just enjoying an experience long-denied. She'd known enough mortal druggies to recognize it. Focusing on him once more, Maura saw his dopey smile had been replaced by a more intense expression.

"God, you look fantastic in the daylight. That hair," he reached out and ran his fingers through it. Now he gripped the back of her head and pulled her to him, "I never imagined what you could look lit up like with the sun," and he swallowed her up in a tight embrace and a kiss that went from zero to sixty in half a heartbeat.

"Nick," she struggled to pull back, "come on, take it easy will you?" One of his hands was burrowing under her t shirt, the other pinning her to him as he covered her neck in passionate kisses.

"That depends on how easy _you_ make it," he growled.

They were occasionally given to spontaneous bursts of passion, impulsive kisses and playful displays of horniness, sometimes at unlikely times and places. But this seemed so over the top, so bordering on bizarre (and so PUBLIC) it set off alarm bells in Maura's head.

"Nick, cut it out, really," but he wasn't paying attention, now pulling at the button on her jeans.

"We've never done it al fresco, you losing your sense of adventure?"

No, she wasn't liking this a bit, she felt like she was wrestling the football captain on a first date. "Nick, stop," she insisted and shoved at him hard. There was something very human about the strength he demonstrated, but she was outmatched nonetheless. He gripped her shoulder tighter, and it hurt where his fingers dug in.

"Let me _GO,_" her voice rose some in volume and pitch, "ow, shit, that hurts, _stop_ it!" She managed to free a hand and pushed against the side of his face, finally convincing him to loosen his grip. He did so abruptly, put out by her lack of interest.

"Well I've never gotten _that_ response before."

"Yeah, well, you never mauled me like you paid for it before." Maura was breathless, confused and pissed off, and gave his chest a fierce shove. "Get _off_ of me, will you?" She noticed something in the breast pocket of his shirt, and in a flash had dipped in and yanked it out. Several sealed hypo packs, and an injection bottle.

"What the fuck? You self medicating? No wonder you're all coked up."

He snatched them back from her and explained edgily, "We're not certain of the duration, and Nat has to do more tests. She gave me this in case I started to smoulder in the middle of Bay Street. Not much chance of that with the Ice Queen around, though." His petulance was really starting to annoy her, like her ex, Jerry, Mr. "Anytime, Anyplace".

"Nick, how many doses have you had? You said you only started it today. Is it supposed to work this fast? You seem, I dunno, a little,"

"'Coked up'?" Sarcastic. "I guess I'm a little _psyched_ up because very suddenly I have what I've wanted for a hundred years. But the person I most want to have it _with_ isn't exactly sharing the joy."

Maura tried to placate Nick, brushing back the hair from his eyes, and noticed with a shock the sweat on his forehead was clear, not pink. "It's just that your mood, I mean of course you're gonna be a little wired because of all this, but it seems not very, uh, _stable_."

"What, now I'm crazy because I'm happy I'm finally cured?" He sat back heavily in his seat.

"I wish you wouldn't use that word." Shit, she thought to herself, I sound like his mother or something.

"'Cured'?" he repeated. He leaned closer, "Healed? Made well? _Normal_? Why does that bother you so much? I've wanted it for a century."

"You're not _sick_, it bothers me that you've been convinced that you're diseased or something when you're just, you know, _different_."

"Different, huh, like a foreign national or a rare plant."

"Stop it. You know what I mean." She shifted in her seat, felt safe enough now to move closer. "You're nothing you shouldn't be," and she could see him roll his eyes when she said it. "You used to like it when I said that."

"Why wouldn't I when I didn't have a choice? But now I do , and I have, and I can be just like you, with an expiration date." Was he mocking her? He seemed sincere but it bothered Maura that she couldn't really tell, something seemed to be getting in the way of that connection. No need to be paranoid, though, she figured. Really, how would _she_ react if she suddenly found her entire reality changed?

Maura sat back and touched Nick's face gently. "Oh Nicolas, I want you any way you are, you've always known that. And if this is what you want and what you need, then go for it. But excuse me if I want you to be _careful_, not do a Dr. Jekyll and drain the flask all at one go. You said yourself this thing is uncertain, you need more tests, so just go easy, okay? And if this were making you _normal_ I wouldn't be noticing, would I?" His anger seemed replaced now by something of a sulk. She began to feel like maybe she was being a little unreasonable. "Whatever this is it seems to have brought out the kid in you. I've gotten used to being the May in this totally May/December relationship," she teased him. She leaned over and kissed him. "I've gotten used to _gentle_, Bats, you scared me a little with the Rhett Butler routine." His mood seemed to lighten as he ran a finger down her cheek.

"Frankly my dear," he began then smiled and continued "just getting carried away, I guess. Sorry," he leaned over and returned her kiss, feeling to her just like himself again. Abruptly he suppressed a shudder, and squinted behind his shades. "Must be time for another dose." She frowned as he rolled up his sleeve.

"Right here in the parking lot?" she asked in surprise, scanning the area for witnesses.

"It's 'prescribed', like insulin. Quit worrying." But she couldn't quit it or hide it. And when he made her go with him so he could show off his new self to Janette, she couldn't hide it from her either.

"Your Dr. Lambert did this for you?" Janette asked coolly. "We've been through this before," she told Maura, "and I'm sure he hasn't told you of the danger... not all of our kind would be pleased to know our secrets are held in an... _unrestrained_ vessel."

"You're jealous," Nick suggested, and that childish tone had returned to his voice, "I have what I've wanted for centuries, what you and LaCroix said I'd never have, and you can't stand that it makes me different from you. You can have it too, if you want." He sounded exactly like a little brother gloating over an unshared victory.

"You have _always_ been different from me, Nicolas. And no, I don't want you to share your 'gift' with me. I have never been ashamed of what I am. Your 'disease' is that shame, not your ancient, transformed nature. You have overcome that, in every way you have always lamented. You no longer kill, you mix with mortals, you have found unconditional love," she cast a look at the nervous Maura who thought if there were anything for Janette to be jealous of, that would be it. "And how has she responded to your _re-_transformation, Nicolas? With joy? Or with fear at its uncertainty?"

Both of them looked at Maura, who shifted uneasily. "The jury's still out, Janette, on all of it."

"At least she is being honest with herself, and you," Janette observed. "You would be wise to be inspired by that, Nicolas."

"You won't tell the others," Nick ventured, not seeming to notice how hurtful it was even to suggest it. Maura shook her head, but Janette responded calmly.

"You know I don't have to. Nobody has to. They will know already. I don't know if we can save you this time, Nicolas. Do keep your wits about you, while you still have them."

When they were outside again Maura rebuked Nick, "Did you have to rub her face in it like that? Whether she agrees or not, or approves or not, the 'nyeah, nyeah' shit is a little juvenile."

Nick deliberately lengthened his stride, forcing Maura to trot to keep up. "You can't possibly know what this means to me," he dismissed her concerns with an annoyed wave and kept walking.

Maura had to jog backwards in front of Nick to get his attention. "But _Janette_ does, doesn't she? Why doesn't _she_ 'share the joy'? Is it about what happened before? Don't worry, I don't need to know the story. Some bits of your history tend to repeat themselves."

As they got in the car Nick turned on her. "Why do you have to be such a _bitch_ about this?" he demanded.

It shocked Maura into abandoning the debate, still she had to add, "If you were really in control of this you wouldn't be asking." He was going to have to figure this one out on his own, if he was still capable.

Seeming to want to defuse the argument, Nick smiled in a conciliatory fashion. "Okay, okay, I'll try to curb my enthusiasm. Look I have stuff to do at the precinct, where do you want me to drop you?"

"Take me home, I guess. I have the night off, maybe I'll just hang for awhile." It was obvious to Maura that Nick believed he was behaving normally, but to Maura it seemed he was feverishly changing masks to convince her everything was all right.

"Natalie, would you mind telling me what the _fuck_ you have given Nick?" After Nick dropped Maura off at the loft and left to go over some things with Schanke, she'd gotten a cab to the coroner's building and stormed into the lab. Natalie's worried face spoke volumes.

"Oh no, what's happening with him? How is he acting?"

"You mean aside from trying to ravish me in the parking lot at the beach, and shooting up in public, and acting like a spoiled ten year old with Janette? Oh yeah, and he called me a bitch. Other than all _that_ he's perfectly normal thanks." She dropped the sarcasm and continued desperately, "Natalie, he's positively _manic_, impulsive, mood swings, everything. And after he shoots up, it gets worse. First he's sick as a dog, and when it passes he's all cocky and godlike."

"Oh god we've made a terrible mistake."

"''We? You mean you've been working on this together, and he never mentioned it?" Add one to the list, Maura thought, but Natalie told her, "No, not at all. I've been working on this one on my own, and only told him about it this morning."

"You mean he'd never have thought of shooting up this thing if you didn't offer?"

"I offered him the _choice_, and I told him the risks," Natalie protested.

"He told me you don't _know_ the risks!"

Natalie was disturbed, pacing. " No, I didn't have a specific list of possible side effects but I told him only to use the stuff I gave him in case of an emergency, and to come back here in a few hours for LOTS of tests. We thought we had a cure."

"A cure." Maura's voice curdled on the word. "If I hear that one more time I'll _scream_. How many times has he fucked himself up because he's convinced he needs to be _cured_? Garlic pills, veggie shakes, near-death machines, and now some kind of instantly addictive Jekyll and Hyde thing that makes him sick and psycho and who knows what else. You have to deal with the aftermath, Natalie, but you don't have to _live_ with it. Just exactly how much shit do you intend to put him through until you decide you can't cure what he is? And who the hell are you to keep telling him he _needs_ to be 'cured' anyway? "

Not exactly wanting to fight, Natalie didn't agree either. "You can't really be asking that? You know how Nick has struggled with his past, his demons, who he wants to be versus what he's been."

"Well who the hell hasn't? Pasts and demons and dichotomy are not the exclusive realm of the undead, for christsake. What you're describing is practically the _essence _of mortality. So he drinks blood instead of martinis... it's _cow's_ blood, no more evil than eating a burger. He hasn't taken a mortal victim in almost a hundred years, in fact he's become the kind of person that most mortals can't come close to being. Even the job he's chosen, the one he's totally committed to, he works overtime to stop the kind of evil he's run from. Why isn't it enough?"

"Maybe it isn't enough for him. Is it really that big a mystery to you? He's a big boy, Maura, and you talk like I control him."

"_Don't _you? Call it 'influence' if you want to split hairs. In almost a century there's never been a thing he's done to 'cure' himself that didn't come from you. Including believing he _has _something to cure, that he's some kind of walking disease, he sees his past as a flaw of substance instead of behavior. Has he ever once insisted that you continue this research, has he _demanded_ to be made a guinea pig in this wild goose chase for your definition of 'humanity'? There are nights I sit with him, and talk to him, and hold him and love him and swear to him that he's good enough, _better _than most even, mortal or otherwise. That when he fails it's not because he's evil, it doesn't mean he's let anyone down because of what he is. I tell him over and over he is nothing he shouldn't be, and when he's right on the edge of believing it, in comes a call from the venerable Natalie Lambert, doctor to the dead, who's so desperate to overcome the fact that it's too late for her to cure her _usual _patients she has to glom onto the one that made it off the slab. Lemme tell you something, _doctor_, Nick can't redeem his existential losses by becoming mortal, and _you _can't redeem _yours_ by raising the dead."

Natalie's voice was tight and cold. "Is there a point to this lecture? Because I really would like to try to find Nick and see what I can do."

"You can leave him the fuck alone, is what you can do. Revivify lab rats, why don't you. But leave Nicolas _alone_. Goddammit, haven't you done _enough_?"

"Would you mind if I found some way to get him out of this addiction first?"

"Would have been nice if you thought of that _before_ you stuck the needle in his arm." She was intending to leave, but couldn't stop herself from continuing, knowing she was spinning as much out of control as Nick was and caring about as much as he did. "You still can't accept we're together, can you? Just like who Nick is isn't good enough for you, the friendship you have between you and the love he has for you isn't good enough either. It's the wrong _kind_ of genuine emotion, like he's the wrong _kind_ of good man. To set yourself up as offering something I can't, you have to convince him first that he needs it. You're a genuine pusher, you know that? Well you finally got your wish. He's a junkie, and you're the supplier, and there's not fuck-all he can get from me that will make the slightest bit of difference to him." She swept an exaggerated bow. "I salute you." She left Natalie still struggling to reply, knowing she had been way out of line and that Natalie would never in a million years hurt Nick, or anyone for that matter, intentionally. She was thinking with her mouth again, letting her frustration run her. And though she wasn't proud of it, and certainly would apologize later (wouldn't Nick love to hear that one), right now she wasn't up to being mature and civilized. Shit, as long as Nick thought evil was in his present biology and not his past behavior, he'd keep right on hurting himself and everyone around him. The rage for controlling the uncontrollable was a core compulsion she'd never admit she shared with Nick, and Maura could be driven just as far by it as he was.


	2. Chapter 2

When Maura got home she was confronted by a surreal scene... Nick standing in the sunlight pouring through the unshuttered windows, LaCroix standing smouldering before him in the same light, assuring him that given the choice he'd choose the "disease" over the "cure" because the cure seemed to be driving Nicholas to more sickness and less control than his true nature had ever managed to do. On the dining room table were two discarded syringes, a collection of empty and one mostly-full medicine bottle. And a wine bottle drained of blood.

"You can't stand that I'm not yours anymore," Nick was sneering. Unbelievably, LaCroix took another step into the light. His pale skin was beginning to discolor.

"You will _always _be mine, Nicholas, no mortal drug can change that. Though you may not belong to yourself much longer..." Not looking back, he observed, "Look, Nicholas, your true love has returned. Has she guessed she's been replaced?" And then he was gone. Nick shifted his attention, and defenses, to Maura.

She took a good look at Nick and shook her head in disgust. The most beautiful man she'd ever known was now disheveled, one sleeve rolled up and half-buttoned shirt hanging loose, sweaty and unshaven, eyes empty of anything but what the drug had put there. "Shit, Nick, look at yourself. You call this a 'cure'?" She held grabbed the single remaining bottle of the drug and held it up in the light. "Not much, is it, to trade for every good thing you've done for yourself, for _humanity_, for the people who love you. I can't believe you're willing to dump it all for a fucking s_unburn_!" He took a step toward her.

"What do you know about it. You take the daylight for granted." His eyes were lit with something crazier than Maura wanted to imagine, but she was too driven to pay attention.

"Even if you're right, you know LaCroix doesn't. And he can see you disappearing beneath this just like I can, even since this morning, as you cling to the insistence you're _cured _of a disease that doesn't _exist_, when you can't even get through an hour without another shot. If you're so 'cured' what's that?" She indicated the empty wine bottle. "A sip down memory lane, even though you're so CURED?".

His eyes narrowed, voice segueing from suspicion to outright hostility. "You don't want me mortal, do you, you never did. You're like Janette and LaCroix, but not quite, are you, not _quite_ mortal but not quite _im_mortal, you'd like me to stay in limbo along with you, aping mortality but remaining immortal, exotic, someone you can control with your _own_ drugged blood." In his drug-induced psychosis it was all becoming clear.

Maura shook her head in frustration, and barked a dismissive laugh. "Oh, keep digging, Nicolas, you must think you may find some logic if you plow under enough bullshit. But your thoughts aren't _yours _anymore, don't you get it? They come from here, now," and she held the bottle up again and shook it wildly. He watched it, hypnotized. She was out of wise words and simply insisted, "You need to _stop_."

He reached for the bottle. "You don't know what I need," he muttered, but she took a step back and hurled the bottle against he wall as if punishing it for everything that was happening.

"_That's_ what you need, goddammit," and though his eyes went blank with rage as the bottle shattered, the danger still didn't quite register with Maura until his backhand knocked her off her feet. Mortal he may have been, but a strong one in spite of his drugged state or maybe because of it, and with no time to prepare she'd been defenseless. Blood poured from her cut lip. Lying there rather stupidly she expected him to be stunned by his actions, to come to her in abject apology. She was wrong, still not understanding this was Nick in appearance only, the man she knew replaced by a chemical changeling.

"You think you're strong enough, smart enough, to control me, to keep me in line?" he asked her sarcastically, "you think 'true love' and a bad attitude can handle anything, don't you? Always ready for a fight..." He reached down and jerked her to her feet by one wrist. One look in his eyes told Maura all she needed to know, and her long-buried instinct for self preservation kicked in.

"Nick for christsake, think. This isn't _you_!" She fought him frantically. Nothing mattered now but getting away.

"I'm 'nothing I shouldn't be', remember?" Nick locked his other arm around Maura's waist and what some would call a kiss was too brutal for the name. When he pulled back, he slowly licked her blood from his lips. "Who says you can't have it both ways?"

"Let me go, I'm outta here," she spat in his face and twisted furiously in his grip but was no match even for his human strength.

"Just like the good old days in the king's crusades," he purred in her ear, "been awhile since someone put up a struggle," he flung her to the sofa, "I'd forgotten how _invigorating _it can be." She was on her feet in a second, trying to break for the door, but he swung and connected with the side of her head, stunning her.

"Mother_fucker_!" Maura screamed and moved blindly to dodge past him, but he caught her again. Maura gritted her teeth and brought a knee up to try and nail him in the groin, but Nick was too fast and knocked her to the floor again, this time falling on top of her.

"Why don't you want to make nice? Now I'm just like you, remember?" His parody of intimate knowledge made her nauseous. She struggled wildly and he must have hit her a couple of more times because suddenly she was too dazed to continue the fight. He brought his lips close to her ear in a burlesque of the gentle whispers he often shared with her. "Now I'm _really _who I should be, and you want to take that _away_? I thought you _loved _me…"

"Let me go, Nick, just let me go, I don't care anymore what you think you need," she wheezed, his weight making it difficult to breathe. Both her forearms were pinned to the floor by his full weight on them as he straddled her.

"But I have _mortal _needs now, and after all you _are_ my 'true love'," he held her down with an arm at her throat and tore at her clothes with the other, kissed and bit and clutched her so hard she thought her skin would burst under his fingers. He'd kill her, she was convinced, when he was through with her he'd kill her because he really believed he was entitled. She'd betrayed him by not supporting his "cure" and he'd kill her just because he could, his mind was that shattered by the drug. She tried to shut her brain off … "this isn't Nick, this isn't Nick" she repeated in her head over and over. She couldn't shut out his voice though, now possessed with a mindless rage, chanting "sweet, sweet, sweet," until he finished with her, biting into her shoulder and drawing blood, licking at the wound to mock her. She lay still, scarcely breathing for the pain and realized this was the first time she was ever truly afraid of him. He rose abruptly, leaning on her with one hand for leverage as if she were a piece of furniture. Then he yanked his jeans up, buttoned and tucked in his shirt. He leaned down for a moment and whispered coldly, "Was it good for you?" before striding to the door, presumably to find more drugs to replace the ones Maura had destroyed.

How long she lay there on the floor, immobilized by pain and shock, Maura had no idea. She struggled to process and _not_ to process what just happened, Nick had brutalized her, but actually it was nobody she knew. His body, his voice, his eyes on fire, but it was nobody she knew. Before long she was seized with the fear that he'd return soon, and was frantic to leave. She struggled to her feet and dragged upstairs to change her ruined clothes and shower. It wasn't as if she could report this to the police, so she didn't worry about evidence. The bruises on her face were darkening already, her cut lip swelling. One eye was puffing rapidly. She tried not to look too closely at the rest of herself as she changed. God, it hurt, everything hurt, especially the small sharp stabbing in her side, she felt like she'd been hit by a truck. She slipped on her formal velvet cloak, covering her head and face with the generous hood, and called a cab to take her to Raven.

Not wanting to attract attention Maura slipped down the alley and knocked on the back door. "Janette! Janette it's Maura, let me in! _Janette!_" When no reply came her pounding became frenzied, her voice rising to a shrill edge. "Janette _please_, you have to let me _in!_" By the time the door was pulled open she was clutching her side and gasping with pain. Janette didn't recognize her at first.

"What is this about," she began, remaining in the shadows to avoid the daylight, maintaining a haughty demeanor until Maura raised the hood just enough to be known. Janette's face transformed into a stunned mask. "Mon dieu! Maura, what... mon dieu, come in," and she pulled her in and slammed and bolted the door. Now that she was safe, Maura hesitated to reveal herself. She honestly didn't want to know what she looked like. In the end Janette stepped up and carefully lifted back the hood of the cloak, her eyes widening at the sight.

"What has _happened_ to you?"

Maura's swollen lip made it difficult to speak, and she couldn't manage to look Janette in the eye with her one good one. "Nick... he's taking so much of that drug, we had a fight, he..." she trailed off and Janette cut in with a gasp, "_Nicolas _did this to you?" Her tone seemed to demand confirmation, so Maura nodded painfully. God, everything hurt _so much_. "Come with me, cherie," and Maura stumbled as they made their way to the office, crying out as Janette caught her around the waist. She paused and lifted the side of Maura's shirt, grimacing as she saw the spreading red bruise.

"And this is what Nicolas calls a 'cure'? Before, at least, he only injured himself," she hissed in disgust. "Come, let's see what we can do for you."

In the private room off the office Janette had to help Maura get her clothes off piece by piece. She was covered with livid bruises and scrapes from the struggle and attack, a bite mark on her shoulder, and purple finger marks on her arms and collarbone where Nick had held her down.

"Oh cherie, we can manage with most of this but I fear there is something broken here," she indicated the bruise on Maura's ribs.

"I think I felt kind of a snap there when I fell," she admitted. Revulsion transformed Janette's elegant features.

"_Redemption, _he is always reaching for 'redemption', never minding the damage until it is done. It is one thing for him to pay for his own foolish choices, but this is too much."

Maura hesitated when she'd removed her jeans, and Janette saw.

"Maura, he didn't...?" For Janette rape was the most unspeakable crime, she had suffered it herself as a mortal and considered it a form of torture beside which all others paled. An "incomplete murder" she'd called it on more than one occasion.

Unable to answer, unable to nod, Maura stared mutely into Janette's horrified eyes.

"What has he become," Janette positively growled under her breath.

"Nothing that I made." LaCroix had appeared silently and now stood near the door, eyes discreetly averted.

"LaCroix, really!" Janette grabbed the kimono that hung on a nearby hook and hastily wrapped it around Maura. Once she'd secured the sash, LaCroix faced them both. "It seems I left too soon," he told them.

His face betrayed no expression at all that Maura could discern. "Or just in time," she responded coldly.

Did he falter, or was it her imagination? "You don't believe me of course, but I would have stopped him. Even I can admit when Nicholas has strayed beyond the pale."

Maura groaned as she lowered herself onto the Victorian fainting couch. Janette went into the bar in search of ice and clean towels and, unbeknownst to Maura, to call Natalie Lambert.

"Cheer up, LaCroix, finally there's something he can't blame you for." Maura didn't even care why he was there. Morbid curiosity, she supposed.

LaCroix leaned against the wall. "Do I hear the sound of true love faltering?"

For a moment she dropped her face in her hands, completely overcome by events. Then she raised her head to look LaCroix hard in the eye. "Can we just call off the pissing contest this once? You know we both want the same thing, we always have." Silence from her audience. He was going to make her say it, to admit it. "We both want what's best for Nick. Up til now he's overcome every single thing he's condemned himself for but he's _still_ convinced the finish line is that freaking illusion he calls mortality." _Go on_, LaCroix's eyes said to her, _tell me more_.

"Nick told me what he was like before he came across, but I never really understood until today." She grimaced as she took a breath. Still no reply. "Okay, I'll say it, I'm beginning to realize you probably did him a _favor_, or the rest of the world anyway. You might have given him limitless life and power, but you also held the reins on it. Am I getting warm? He's seen mortality from the _outside_ for 800 years, and by now those rose-colored glasses are welded to his face. He's so _naive_ in some ways, LaCroix, he thinks all goodness and light comes only from mortality. How the hell did he come to that idiot conclusion?" Her frustration was crystallizing into words that she'd never thought to utter, because nobody else would have understood why they angered her so. "He spends every day cleaning up after 'mortal' savages. And what the _hell _made him think he'd make a GOOD mortal when all he'd ever been was a mortal _barbarian_, for christsake?"

Did LaCroix appear satisfied? Would he finally approach this rationally? At last he spoke in a quiet voice.

"When I made my bargain with Nicholas, it had far more to do with you than him. I saw a glimmer of awareness in his latest choice, a possibility that perhaps he would give up this foolish quest for illusion given sufficient time with someone of your... insight."

"A pretty word for cynicism. I've been balanced on the mortality fence long enough to know that the grass ain't all that green on either side."

LaCroix shrugged mildly. "You're not the first to arrive at that conclusion. Does this mean that we shall witness Nicholas' self-inflicted demise on equal footing?"

Maura wasn't convinced by the cool act. "We don't like each other much, LaCroix, that's another thing we agree on. But we _know _ each other, maybe better than Nick does. And I don't believe for a minute you're enjoying his latest Grand Guignol tragedy. No matter how a child betrays him, a father can't enjoy the suffering of his son." Somehow she knew that LaCroix realized she wasn't baiting him.

"Ah, there's the rub." He stepped into the room then, looking down at Maura with an expression so unnatural she guessed it must be akin to sympathy. "But as we have both observed, Nicholas is not as I made him."

"But he could be again, couldn't he? You lured him away before, you could do it again even now, I'll bet. There's enough of a connection left, there has to be."

LaCroix pulled a distasteful face. "I'm not sure I like the term 'lure'. You could be right though, I believe 20th century Americans refer to it as 'deprogramming'."

Maura shook her head. "First he has to detox. Isolate him long enough to get the drug out of his system, _then_ you can work on the Grand Delusion. Shouldn't be too hard, once he knows what he's done to me. Guilt has always been his Achilles heel."

LaCroix's mouth twitched in an appreciative smile. "My dear, it's a pity you can't be brought across. Armed with such clear-headed _cynicism _you would make a fearsome addition to my little family. You might even qualify as an Enforcer." He pondered a moment. "Yes, it might work. He's deranged enough that the mere promise of the drug could buy his cooperation. I believe he'd agree to anything."

"And let me tell you his paranoia won't stand in your way; he's so manic he thinks his genius is a match for anyone, even you."

La Croix's eyes narrowed. "But tell me, after Nicholas is 'detoxed' and 'deprogrammed' and back in the arms of his one true love, what becomes of his betrayed parent?"

"Listen close, LaCroix, if you can pry him away from this obsession of his," she winced as she ran a hand across her face, "you can keep him. Make him into a proper little creature of the night, take him on an endless party of debauchery, I don't care. But get him off this drug while there's still a shred of Nicholas Knight left to save, and I promise he's yours for eternity."

In spite of himself, LaCroix's mouth opened in disbelief. "I believe you may mean that." The distrustful look returned. "But if I do succeed, of course his first desire will be to 'make it up' to you."

Maura gestured at herself. "_Look_ at me, will you?" She struggled to her feet and stood before him. "You're not stupid, you know our connection can't be broken. But I'm not stupid either. Nick is the romantic, not me, and I was never one to sacrifice myself on the altar of true love. I may have come into the Community a refugee, but I don't have to bargain my body for my life anymore. If you can save him, you can _have _him, no strings, no arguments. And when he comes back home I'll be as gone as I was before, only this time for good."

LaCroix still looked suspicious. Impatiently Maura yanked up one sleeve, exposing a colorful set of bruises, and thrust her wrist to within inches of LaCroix's mouth.

"Help yourself. Blood doesn't lie." Her eyes never left his.

They stood still and silent for a moment, each taking the measure of the other. Finally LaCroix took the proffered wrist in a near-gentle grip and lowered Maura's arm.

"That won't be necessary."

Maura was suddenly dizzy; LaCroix caught her before she fell to the floor in a dead faint. When Janette returned from making a phone call she was confronted with the spectacle of LaCroix laying Maura down on her "fainting couch".

"LaCroix! _What_ are you up to?"

He barely looked over his shoulder as he arranged Maura on the couch. "Oh curb your imagination, Janette. Nicholas' true love fainted in the middle of our discussion."

Janette raised an eyebrow. "She is no longer his 'pet'?"

"Pets don't bargain away their owners." He shared Maura's and his conversation with Janette, who was surprised by Maura's willingness to concede to LaCroix.

"Au contraire, Janette, in the heat of battle I think we've at last found common ground." He headed for the door. "I'm off to 'detox' Nicholas, whatever that means."

Maura came to in a few minutes as Janette was putting towel-wrapped ice on her injured mouth and another compress on her eye.

"I have summoned a doctor, cherie." No further explanation.

"Who? Do I know him?"

"Someone who needs to see the fruits of her meddling first-hand."

"No! Not Natalie, Janette, for christsake!"

Janette was resolute. "And why should she not clean up the mess she has helped to cause?"

Maura just didn't have the strength left to argue; her debate with LaCroix had drained whatever was left. She slumped back on the couch to wait, holding the improvised ice packs against her throbbing face. They seemed at least to numb the pain a little.

"Janette, where's..." Natalie began, but stopped short when she saw Maura lying on the couch. The marks on her arms were plainly visible where the sleeves of the kimono had fallen back; one hand held the ice to her face but it didn't cover everything. "Oh my god..." She rushed to the couch and dropped her bag to the floor. "Maura, let me see..." she took the towel, blooming with pink bloodstains, from Maura and laid it on the floor next to her bag. Janette had said they'd had a fight, but she wasn't prepared for the face looking up at her.

"Oh god, Maura..."

"Don't waste our time, okay? You didn't expect this any more than I did." Her speech was slurred by the swelling on her lip.

"When did this happen?"

"I'm not sure, a few hours ago anyway. Is it still light out?"

"Barely. Here, let me clean this up," and she took disinfectant and gauze and began to work on the facial lacerations. "This is gonna sting."

"Sting..." Maura echoed drily, "that would be a step up." Natalie continued in silence. She found the hard bump on the side of Maura's head where Nick's hand had connected. "Are you having any dizziness, or disorientation?" she asked, concerned about possible concussion.

"I don't believe I'd know the difference right now. I see one of everything, anyway, but then only one eye is working all that well."

"The ice should help with that." Natalie examined the eye closely, "No real damage I can see, it should heal fine." When she'd put a butterfly closure on Maura's split lip – "You might have a scar there," she warned – she asked, "Can you sit up now?" With effort Maura turned sideways and sat upright, letting Natalie pull the kimono down off her shoulders.

Maura couldn't see her face, but heard the gasp. "You could say we danced the ugly dance this time," she said flatly.

Natalie cleaned out the bite that broke skin, and reached into her bag. "You need a tetanus shot..." she said automatically and pulled out the syringe, unwrapped it and expertly plunged it into Maura's upper arm. She didn't flinch. By now Natalie saw what Janette had referred to as "something we can't cope with ourselves", the deep red bruising on Maura's side that likely indicated at least one fractured rib. "I'm gonna need you to reach up." Maura did so, grimacing with pain as Natalie examined the area.

"I'd rather have an x-ray," Natalie mused but continued before Maura could protest, "but I know that's impossible. You've probably got a fracture here but I think it's minor with some bad bruising. Well I can do what they'd do in the ER either way, just tape you up." She wrapped some wide gauze around Maura's rib cage, following with a tight wrap of strapping and finishing with two or three ace wraps. By the time she was finished, lights were dancing in front of Maura's eyes.

"Tell me where else you're hurt," Natalie wanted to know.

"Do you have a gyno kit with you?" It seemed stupid to ask about a "rape" kit, since evidence was a moot point. Natalie just blinked at her.

"Gyno kit?"

"Yeah, Natalie, gyno kit. For the 'where else'."

"Oh god, he didn't," stunned into not completing the statement. Why is it nobody could manage to utter the word? For a moment Maura thought Natalie might actually vomit.

"Raped me. Yeah. Since I told him to stop I'd say it qualifies. I think I might be bleeding, but I'm not sure."

Natalie examined her carefully, applying antibiotic ointment. There were a few more bruises on Maura's legs, a sharp-edged laceration where she'd been kicked in the shin during their struggle. When Natalie had treated everything as best she could, she fell heavily into the velvet armchair as if completely spent by the experience.

"You could say I put up a fight, but by now the evidence on _him _would be gone," Maura commented.

"I can't believe Nick did this to you."

"That makes two of us."

"But it wasn't _him_, you know he's not capable of this in his right mind. It was the _drug_."

Maura lay back and shut her eyes, shook her head wearily. "No, Natalie, it wasn't him at all. But it wasn't just the drug, it was the _delusion_, the obsession that drove him to it. It _always_ is. What made him lie to me and nearly got me killed by LaCroix when we first met, what makes him swallow every one of your concoctions and leaves me to take care of his sickness, what pushed him to near-suicide. Not guilt, not doubt, or depression, or the need to win an 800-year running argument with his maker. Nick's delusion of attainable mortal perfection did this to me. And we all know who his co-dependent in that river of denial is."

"You can't think I knew this would happen."

"Of course not, I may be crazy but I'm not stupid. But sometimes you two don't seem to think about much besides the finish line, do you? Look I hate to ask, given the whole drug issue, but can I have something for the pain? I feel like whatever isn't broken is on fire, and whatever isn't on fire is pounded to pulp."

Natalie pulled a syringe and bottle out of her bag, carefully read the label, and administered a shot. "This should take the edge off."

"You should assume he went to your lab to get more drugs," Maura advised.

"Security will deal with it, if they can. This was more important."

"LaCroix went after him too. Natalie, don't let them hurt him, okay? Just in case they can."

Natalie frowned down at the now-fading Maura. "You would say that, wouldn't you?" she muttered. Janette entered as Natalie reached for her trilling cell phone. "Okay. Thanks, I'll be right there." To Janette she said, "That was Schanke. Nick called him after collaring a couple of suspects. It sounds like he might be getting back to normal. I've gotta go," she cast an eye at the couch. "Janette, I swear I had no idea this would happen."

"I don't deal in absolution, doctor, but thank you for coming."

"She'll sleep for a while, I gave her something for the pain. See if you can keep her quiet for the next day, to see how that rib does. She got banged in the head, but I didn't find any evidence of concussion. Call me if anything changes, though. She'll probably feel worse tomorrow."

"I suspect she will not be the only one. Will you tell Nicolas about this?"

Natalie nodded grimly. "Somebody has to… why not me?" Janette didn't answer as Natalie gathered up her bag and coat and left.


	3. Chapter 3

Natalie found Nick at the waterfront cleaning up the details of a rather messy collar. The suspects, an IAD chief and an organized crime boss, had tried to run him down and hadn't counted on an indestructible man. An ambush as he returned from looting the coroner's lab, a couple of bullets to the torso and a couple hours locked in the trunk of his own car had speedily detoxed Nick, and he was back to his former self and deeply mortified for his behavior of the past 24 hours. It was clear to Natalie that he remembered nothing of the final stages of his drug-induced mania. She stood by as Schanke finished conferring with Nick.

"Can you spare a minute," she asked, taking his arm to draw him away. He'd shown her a flash of fang as she approached, to reassure her that he was his ancient self again.

"Nat, I don't know what to say."

"It was my mistake too. Don't worry about that now. We have to talk about Maura."

He was puzzled. "Maura? I dropped her off home this afternoon. Things got a little crazy after I went to the precinct, you were right, I had no idea how that stuff was poisoning me."

"You really don't remember, do you?" She had assumed as much but still it seemed incredible that he could have done so much damage and remain completely unaware of it.

The puzzled look continued.

"Remember what? I dropped her off, I went to the precinct, and went home again and took more of the drug. Then I hit the lab like a psycho to get even more, I guess, and after that's when I ran into these two, I came to in my trunk not long ago," he indicated the two men in handcuffs.

"Nick, we need to talk." Natalie gripped his arm for emphasis, and he looked down at her hand.

"We _are _talking."

"Somewhere else." She made him get in the Caddy with her after taking his leave of Schanke, so nobody else would hear. Now she put a hand on his shoulder, looked him straight in the face and tried to ignore her part in what she was about to tell him. "Nick, I don't know exactly how to say this so I'm just gonna tell you straight out. You did go back to the loft, but Maura went back too, after coming to tell me how crazy you were getting. You had a fight, a bad one."

"Oh shit, I can't remember..."

"You hurt her, Nick."

He looked disgusted with himself, stared out the windshield. "So what else is new It seems to be my perpetual forté." He slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Natalie reached out and forced him to turn to her.

"No, Nick you don't get it. _Look_ at me!" He did, surprised by her outburst. "You had a fight. You hurt Maura, badly."

"Oh shit, what did I say to her," but Natalie cut him off, her voice growing more intense.

"_No, _Nick. You hit her. You cut her lip, you gave her a black eye. You probably broke one of her ribs."

Nick looked at her as if she were telling him the world were flat. "Nat, I've learned my lesson, you don't have to," he said it as if she were painting a what-if scenario to scare him straight. Her hand tightened against the side of his head, fingers clenched in his hair without realizing.

"Nick, you beat her up. You raped her. She told Janette you argued, she broke the last bottle you had of the drug, so you beat her up and raped her and left her there to go find more."

The car filled with cold silence. Looking at Nick's face, Natalie could almost believe he'd vacated his body. Finally he said one word.

"No."

Natalie stared steadily into his eyes, saying nothing.

"Nat, why are you _lying_ like this, telling me this sick shit?"

"I'm not lying. I came here from Raven, she managed to get to Janette after you left. I did what I could for her, cleaned her up and bandaged what was bleeding. I taped her ribs; I gave her a shot for the pain. My god Nick, she's a mess, she's covered with bruises and contusions," she realized she was reciting Maura's injuries as if someone else had inflicted them, but he needed to know exactly what happened.

"_Stop!_" Nick's shout was deafening in the confines of the car. He was crowded back against the driver's side door, trying to escape what she was telling him. He scrambled out of the car and ran to lean against a tree, back to the streetlights. If he were mortal he'd have been throwing up. "I didn't _do _that," he said to nobody.

"Yes you did, Nicholas." LaCroix stood nearby, not quite hidden by the shadows. "The good doctor hasn't exaggerated. I saw the poor woman myself."

Nick's eyes narrowed. "And _why_ would you do that? To gloat?"

LaCroix's gaze remained level. "She believed that too, of course. But no, I wanted to see for myself how far you'd fallen by your own hand. Even your true love acknowledged that at last there was a transgression you could not blame on what I'd made you. This was entirely fed by your own ambitions."

Nick looked sick. "My _ambitions_?"

"Your delusions, then. The delusion that becoming mortal is worth any price. The trouble is, dear Nicholas, you can't seem to keep from _borrowing_ to pay it. This time you gave up every shred of self control, every one of your 'good intentions', driven by what your Maura described as the inexplicable belief that you could be a 'good' mortal, when in fact the only kind you'd ever been was a barbarian."

"She told you that?"

"And more. I confess I realize now I have misjudged her all this time. She told me if I could persuade you from this latest self-destructive folly, and convince you to abandon your obsessive attempts to escape your nature, that she would give you up for good."

In spite of his distress, Nick laughed derisively. "Always looking for a bargain, eh LaCroix?" he spat.

"Quite the contrary. The lady offered; I merely accepted."

"And you believed her."

"She offered her blood as proof." Nick's eyes glowed red then, but before he could attack LaCroix stepped forward and assured, "I declined her offer. Perhaps there is more honor among nemeses than loved ones. In any case if you'd seen her at that moment you would have seen as I did that she is far more willing to sacrifice her heart than her life, or yours for that matter. As long as you are well and whole and clear of mind at last, she would leave you to my influence whatever that may be. You have to agree that no woman you have ever claimed to love has displayed such a compassionate sense of self preservation. What a new experience it must be for you, to find a mate, a _mortal_ mate, whom you have not needed to hypnotize or coerce. Even a cynic like myself has to wonder why you're so determined to reject that at the encouragement of another who would _never _truly accept you as you are."

Nick appeared dizzy, shook his head to clear it. "Is she still at Raven?" he wanted to know.

"I don't expect she'll be inclined to move about very soon. But then your brutality as a vampire never quite matched your mortal excesses, did it?" Nick was gone before the echo of his words died. Good, his master thought. Let him see the fruits of his folly. As depraved as LaCroix had been in his time, he had never purported to be anything else. It was time for Nicholas to recognize his own hypocrisy.

"How dare you show your face here," Janette hissed in fury. "Have you have turned your back on your feeble morality so completely that have you no shame left?"

"I came to see," but she wouldn't let him continue.

"I know why you came. To make excuses, to beg forgiveness. To _swear_ no such thing will happen again. Until next time."

Nick's eyes flashed with anger. "_Next_ time?"

"Until the next time your Dr. Lambert waves another pretty promise in front of you. Why will you never grow _up_, Nicolas? You are like a child distracted by its fondest fantasy... all promises are forgotten, all loyalties ignored. This _fetish_ for mortality, it erases all reason, and for what? Do you not see the irony, Nicolas? That in order to overcome the darkness in your past, you are willing to extinguish every light in your present?"

He wasn't in the mood for lectures, and strode past her toward the office door. "Where is she, Janette? In your private chamber?"

She didn't try to stop him. Like LaCroix, she wanted him to see what he'd done, but for quite a different reason.

At first Nick saw nothing amiss in the figure asleep on Janette's fainting couch, and for a moment of wild relief he believed that they had misled him in order to teach him a lesson. Then he came close enough to see Maura's ravaged face. Her right eye was badly swollen, awash in purple and blue. The mouth he never had enough kisses from was puffed up on one side, a small white bandage patching a bloody cut. Bruises everywhere, reddish handprints on her exposed forearms, scrapes and scratches from what he couldn't imagine. She was deeply asleep, or unconscious, submerged under whatever that Natalie had given her to ease the pain he'd inflicted.

"Oh my best beloved," he whispered, "what is this madness?" He sank into the red velvet chair near the couch, helpless to do anything but stare at Maura and be horrified by this, in his mind far beyond the pale of any offenses he'd committed in his 800 years. What was it she'd told him that time when he'd experimented with near death, that his ratio of seven bad centuries to one good one hadn't built much equity. Whatever there was had been erased today and LaCroix was quite right, he had nobody at all to blame but himself. He bent forward, dropping his head in his hands, and cried.

The voice was familiar, but the sounds it made were not. In her half-sleep Maura heard weeping, quiet and desolate. Heartbroken. But he didn't have a heart, or so he kept telling her.

"Nick?" she rasped. Her throat was dry, everything was so blurry.

He expected her to be frightened of him, and wanted to be cautious, but he was on his knees beside her in less than a second.

His face was tormented, streaked with wetness ranging from pink to deep red. "Better?" Maura tried to whisper, but it was so hard. She wanted to know if he was back to normal. He dropped his fangs as he had done for Natalie, opened his mouth slightly. "LaCroix?" She couldn't imagine he'd been convinced so quickly but then she barely knew where she was, let alone how long she'd been there. Nick shook his head no. Her eyes fluttered shut in relief. "Good." She'd have stood by her promise, but was glad not to have to. Why his face didn't trigger terrors, she didn't understand. Maybe it was because he looked like Nick again, not some thuggish junkie. His voice was quiet, tired, hoarse with tears. But it was Nick's voice. "Sweet," he said, stopping his hand before he could touch her. It was nothing at all like the ugly grunting chant she'd heard not long ago. He was crying again. She tried to reach out to him but gasped at the pain that shot up her side at the movement. Nick dropped his eyes, it was too much for him to see. She took another breath and managed to touch his chin, lifting it so he'd look at her. He said nothing; what _could_ he say? He knew what he'd done, he saw how she was. Then he took her hand, so carefully, cradling it like a wounded bird and found a small, white unblemished spot on her wrist where he could press a soft kiss, then his wet cheek, slumping from his knees to sit on the floor, sobbing into her open hand. He wasn't looking for forgiveness, or even comfort, she could tell even now through her drowsy fog. He was incapable of anything but filling her hand with bloodstained tears. Finally he laid his head on the cushion next to her, and she rested her hand in his hair as she faded again into sleep.

When Janette looked in on them moments later she observed bitterly, "So true love has forgiven cruel delusion yet again." LaCroix, standing at her shoulder, corrected her.

"This has nothing to do with forgiveness. We of all others can recognize an unbreakable bond." He didn't explain further. He didn't need to.

"Natalie, we're going to stop this, now." Having pulled himself together Nick had left Maura asleep in Janette's chamber and gone to the coroner's lab to share his realization and decision with her.

"I couldn't agree with you more. I should never have tested this drug so loosely, with no control. I should never have let you take it with you. It needs a lot more refining, and now that I know what the effects of it were I can go from there. There might be enough residue in your blood to test, if not I can just draw some from you and inject the drug in the lab to check its progress under the microscope." She went rifling through her notebook to find the formula, to find out where it went wrong.

"Natalie, you're not understanding me. We're going to _stop_, all of it. All of this," he gestured widely, taking in the lab bench, the notebooks, the testing equipment that had become devoted to their projects to find a cure. "I can't believe it's taken this long, it's taken this _extreme_, for me to finally get it."

Natalie got Nick's drift, and didn't like it. "'Get' what? That we have to be more careful? That you have to remember to consider there's someone else to watch out for? We can do that. Don't worry about _that_, Nick, after this _I'll_ be the one doing the reminding."

He was shaking his head. Not merely resolute, he felt less like he'd made up his mind than if he'd finally discovered it. "No. There's no 'after this'. I am who I am, and I've done what I've done. There's nothing in the world I can do to make up for any of it, I can only keep from doing it again. That means all of it, 800 years' worth."

"Nick come on, you can't let this change your mind."

"Change my mind? From what? LaCroix was right, I've decided that becoming mortal is worth any price, but I keep _borrowing_ to pay for it! And lately it's always from the same person, the one who'd take me any way I am. It's sick, it's _selfish_, and I won't do it anymore."

Natalie laughed. "LaCroix? He'd say _anything_ to keep you from finding a way out of this. He'd keep you locked in this cage forever."

Nick's voice developed an edge. "Well it seems Maura felt freer to share some of her deeper insights with LaCroix, things she hadn't been able to tell me. Or more to the point, I never seemed to be listening. If it's a cage as you say, I'm through walking over her and everyone else to get out the door. I appreciate everything you've tried to do for me, Nat, everything we've tried together, and I'm not blaming you for anything that went wrong. But the fact is that the addiction I just came out of came from another stronger one, and I've got to come out of that one, too."

Natalie stared in silence for a moment, then turned away to clean up her already-clean lab bench. "So I guess that means I won't be seeing much of you anymore."

"Nat." He went to her and turned her to face him. "If that's all we've had in common then I've been wrong about a lot of things."

"That's not what I mean, it's just that, well, you've come so _close_ to what you've been wanting for so long." He was shaking his head, smiling gently.

"No, Nat. I _have_ what I've wanted for so long. A job and 'life' that lets me try to undo some of the same kinds of damage I used to do. Friends who don't have to be hypnotized. A home, finally a _real_ home, with someone I love more than I ever imagined I could, who accepts me as someone worthwhile and worth loving, no matter what I drink for dinner. Is that such a terrible thing, that I'm learning I might just have exactly what I want, what I need, and that all the rest isn't worth the pain it causes anyone else?"

"And what about the pain this decision might cause someone else who cares about you?"

"I'm sorry if that's true. I wouldn't hurt you for the world, Nat. You're my best friend, you've been with me against every kind of hell. But I can't keep hurting Maura, or Janette, or myself for that matter, to spare your feelings and professional interest. What I did today finally woke me up, and it makes me sick that this is what it took. Maura's right, Janette is right, even LaCroix is right. I have to play the hand I was dealt, whether or not it was the right choice so long ago. _Now's_ my chance to make right choices. And just think," he smiled and kissed her forehead, "I have all eternity to put the bad guys away."

Natalie stepped back and away. "I'm sorry Nick, I'm so sorry I failed you, I'm sorry _we_ failed at what I kept telling you was possible."

"Oh, Nat, we didn't 'fail', we just succeeded in a way we didn't expect. Can you accept that?"

"I suppose I'll have to." After a moment that hung heavy between them, she blurted, "Nick I never meant to hurt Maura, I never did any of this to try to drive a wedge between you. She must have thought of that sometimes, she told me today that I couldn't face the fact that you were together, that the only way I could find to hold you was to convince you I had something you needed that she couldn't give you. And that I made up for not being able to 'cure' my patients by trying to 'cure' you."

"Maura lets her fear speak for her sometimes. A lot. My guess is she'll be talking to you soon enough to try to take it all back."

Natalie looked helpless. "I'm not all that sure she's wrong… I don't know, Nick. I wish I did."

"We've all fallen into some questions we didn't want to ask, I guess. Don't let it bother you too much, Nat. I think we can all come out even here, if we manage not to screw up _too_ much." He looked almost apologetic as he hugged her tight.

"I have to get back to Raven. I can't pretend to know how to go on from here, but I think at least I have a starting point. I'll talk to you soon." He kissed her cheek again and left her alone in the lab. He'd asked her if their search for a 'cure' was all they'd had between them... and now she was a little afraid of the answer.

By the time Nick returned to Raven the night crowd was in full swing. He dodged some female vampires, who'd always been on the hunt for him, on the way to the office. Feeling a bit of a surge as he stole in the door to the private room he remembered it was new moon tonight.

Maura was dressed and moving about carefully when he entered the room.

"Ow, shit," she mumbled as she reached to pick up the cloak that lay where Janette had flung it. Nick hesitated.

"What are _you_ afraid of? We've established I can't take you no matter how pissed off I am." His wounded expression shut up her smartass attitude. "Don't say it… not funny. You're right about that, Just Nick. None of this is the least fucking bit funny."

"What can I do that will mean anything at all?" Nick asked her simply as she lowered herself like an old lady into the armchair nearby.

"Talk to me Nick. Tell me what's different now than before, tell me how all this unspeakably ugly shit has changed you. Because if it hasn't, I swear I never want to see you again." There was no anger in her voice, just clear honesty. "I don't think either one of us can keep up like this if something in your agenda doesn't change. Think really hard before you answer, because if it's the wrong one I'm gonna tell you to walk away, and you are gonna do it because you'll know I mean every word. And my last memory of you will be getting the shit beat out of me so you could walk in the sun."

Nick sat on the full sized velvet sofa near the fireplace, leaning toward Maura. "I've just come from Natalie's lab. I told her it's finished, over, that I'm through reaching for something I gave up 800 years ago. Some decisions can't be reversed, and I have to deal with mine the best I can. What's changed in me is knowing that nothing I could gain, or hope to gain, could ever be worth what happened today. Even if I suddenly found out that the end result was permanent, and I'd never need that drug again, knowing what happened on the way would make every day a reminder of how you'd paid for it. You, not me. What's changed in me is that I finally _woke u_p and saw that light doesn't only come from the sun, and that when you spend all your time looking backward you just keep running over people." He was beginning to feel like he was veering dangerously close to babbling, and stopped. And watched, and waited. Maura had shut her eyes, dropped her head back against the velvet chair, not answering. After a maddeningly too-many few moments, Nick had to ask. "So how did I do? Did I finally get it, or should I leave now?" He honestly didn't know. When Maura's eyes opened, the black one only partly, they were full of tears.

"Give the man his prize, he has _finally_ rung the fucking bell. And after all this time and all those detours I know you're telling the truth because the only one you've been really good at lying to lately is yourself. And anyway, you can't fake enlightenment." She struggled out of the chair to join Nick on the sofa, leaning against the far end and stretching her legs out so her feet were inches from his leg. He closed one hand over her crossed feet.

"Ever get that feeling of déjà vu?" Maura asked. There was a touch of sadness in her voice.

"Yeah. It's new moon, we're in Janette's chamber, and I'm about to ask you to come home with me again. I wonder what you'll say this time?"

"It's déjà vu. You know already. Besides," she flexed her toes, enjoying the feeling of his grip, "I wanna know what happens next. Sense of adventure, and all."

Nick moved to kneel by her end of the sofa. "It's déjà vu. You know already. But I hope you don't mind if I change a few things this time around."

"I sure as shit hope so. What did you have in mind?"

"Oh I thought maybe this time… no drama."

Maura laughed softly to herself. "Right. I'm still mortal and you're still a vampire..."

"But haven't we gotten at least a _little_ better at it? Not to mention I have the 'Toronto superheroes' to keep my sorry ass in line."

"Oh, brother. A highly refined team of shrewd and clueless mortals, wise and psycho vampires, and me, for whom the jury is still WAY out. But no drama."

He offered his most persuasive smile. "A wise woman once told me, 'everything will find its own way'. Deal?"

"Shit, stumbling and fighting and crashing and kicking and screaming and exploring new and creative ways of fucking up, yeah I'd say we've been finding our own fucking way all right."

"If you're through sweet talking me…"

She kissed him then, not caring about her swollen lip or screaming side, and their foreheads stayed pressed together as they fell into each other's eyes.

"Deal."


End file.
